


weight off my shoulders

by marmolita



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2019-2020 NHL Season, Gen, Kneeling, Kneeling verse, M/M, Platonic Kneeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-02-01 03:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21352123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita/pseuds/marmolita
Summary: After five losses in a row, Nate buckles under the strain of trying to carry the team.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	weight off my shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place after the Nov. 5th loss to the Stars (we'll just pretend they stayed in Dallas for the night, I have no idea what they actually did). It's set in the kneeling universe where rookies kneel for veteran players to help them deal with the stress of the NHL.

They lose to the Stars. They don't just lose, they lose by three, in a messy disaster of a game where Nate just can't manage to make anything happen. That's the fifth one in a row, and on the heels of a shutout in fucking Arizona of all places, it hurts. It hurts more that they haven't been able to win since Landy got hurt, and yeah, EJ is an alternate too, but Nate knows that everyone is looking to him to lead them. He knows what the commentators are saying, what the fans are saying -- they're all saying "MacKinnon is going to carry this team on his back" and he's proving them wrong in the worst way. He's not carrying a damn thing on his back -- he's just losing, and losing, and losing.

Sitting down on his hotel room bed with a sigh, he fiddles with his phone, thinking about texting his therapist. He knows what she'd tell him: it's a team sport. It's not all on him, no matter how much he feels like it is. All he can do is his best. Stop thinking about past losses and move forward. It's good advice, and she's helped him a lot, but there's nothing that Nate wants more right now than to sink to his knees at Landy's feet, press his face into Landy's thigh, and feel those long fingers combing through his hair like he did in the 16-17 season.

But Nate's not a rookie anymore, and Landy is back in Denver with a newborn baby and a busted leg, and the team is looking to  _ him _ to set the tone for everyone. Hell, he'd had to try to hold it together in the locker room while Cale knelt for him, had to put his hand on the back of Cale's neck and tell him they'd do better next time. How can he encourage the team when he can't see the light at the end of this tunnel himself? How can he think about how good it would feel to kneel for his captain when all he's doing right now is disappointing him?

As if on cue, his phone starts buzzing with an incoming call from Landy. Nate frowns down at it until it goes to voicemail. But instead of the ding of a new voice message, it starts buzzing with a second call. He swipes to decline the call and lays back on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

_ [Gabe] Nate, pick up your phone _

The text comes moments later, but Nate ignores it.

*

_ (Gabe has created a group chat) _

_ (Gabe has added Tyson Barrie, Sidney Crosby, and Erik Johnson to the chat) _

_ [Gabe] guys SOS Nate needs help _

_ [Tyson] you guys all need help after that game _

_ [Gabe] shut up _

_ [Gabe] I'm serious _

_ [EJ] we all feel like shit right now, Tys isn't wrong _

_ [Gabe] you know how Nate gets and what he needs _

_ [Gabe] I can't help out if I'm not there _

_ [EJ] he didn't seem any worse than the rest of us after the game _

_ [EJ] quiet, just went to his room. flight is in the morning. _

_ [Sid] I'll call him. _

*

Nate expects that Landy will call again, in a while. Or maybe he'll recruit EJ to come bang on Nate's door, or Tyson to send him dumb memes. He doesn't expect the call from Sid, and he answers reflexively before he even thinks about it.

"Nate?" Sid asks, concern clear in his voice.

"Yeah, that's me," Nate replies dryly.

"I bet you don't want me to ask you how you're doing."

Nate snorts. "Yeah, I've heard that one a lot. I'm losing, that's how I'm doing. You've been there, you get it."

There's silence for a minute, then Sid sighs. "Yeah. It sucks. But it's not your fault, you know that, right?"

He's probably being an asshole, but Nate snaps, "Did you want something?"

"Listen," Sid says, and it's in his captain tone of voice, the one he uses when he wants to impart some timeless hockey wisdom. Usually, Nate loves it, but not tonight. "Landy says you're not answering his calls. If you need-- If you need to kneel, Nate, you can do it for me, you know that, right?"

Nate takes a shaky breath. Fuck, of  _ course _ he'd love to be on his knees for Sid. But that isn't the way this works. "I'm not kneeling over the fucking phone, Sid. I'm not a goddamn rookie anymore, either. I've been in this league for six years, which makes me a  _ veteran _ . So tell Landy to shove it and leave me the fuck alone, just like you'd want me to leave you the fuck alone if  _ you _ lost five in a row."

He hangs up without waiting for Sid's answer, then crawls under the covers and closes his eyes.

*

_ [Sid] You're right, he needs to kneel, and badly. Can we get someone to go to his room and see him in person? _

_ [EJ] omw _

*

"Nate! Open the door, I know you're there."

"Go away," Nate growls, throwing a pillow at the door.

"Open the fucking door, asshole," EJ yells through it, "or everyone in this hallway's gonna be pissed at me for making a racket."

Nate groans, crawls out of bed, and opens the door a crack, peering through it. "Go away," he says again.

EJ scowls at him. "Yeah, we lost again, it fucking sucks.  _ We _ lost, not  _ you _ lost. So stop acting like a martyr and be a part of the team."

Nate knows he's got a bad temper. He knows he tends to lose it and resort to violence sometimes, especially when he's frustrated with himself. Still, he never thought he'd want so badly to punch EJ in his toothless face. "Fuck off," he says. "You want to talk about your feelings with the rest of the boys, be my guest, but let me go the fuck to sleep."

He slams the door in EJ's face.

*

_ [EJ] he just told me to fuck off _

_ [Tyson] okay hang on, I have an idea _

_ (Tyson has added Jamie Benn to the chat) _

_ [Tyson] hey Jamie, we need your help _

_ [Tyson] top secret confidential _

_ [Jamie] …ok?? _

_ [Tyson] you got anyone on your team who can get Nate on his knees for a little while? _

_ [Jamie] what _

_ [Gabe] you aren't playing us again for over a month, it's not gonna hurt your playoff chances to help him out _

_ [Jamie] seriously what? _

_ [Jamie] you want me to find someone for MacKinnon to kneel for? _

_ [Jamie] he's not a rookie _

_ [Tyson] like you don't have guys on your team who still need it _

_ [Jamie] ok, point, but why are you texting me about it? _

_ [EJ] he won't do it for us, and we're still in Dallas _

_ [Jamie] what makes you think he'll do it for one of us? _

_ [Sid] Because he doesn't feel responsible for you. _

_ [Jamie] ...what hotel are you guys in _

_ * _

Nate lays in his bed, but sleep doesn't come. He hasn't even bothered to take off his clothes, so when there's another knock on his door, he just rolls his rumpled self out of bed and yanks it open. "EJ, I thought I told you to--" he begins, then blinks a few times. It's not just EJ at his door. It's also Jamie Benn, with the same awkward look on his face he has in every interview ever, and Blake Comeau. "Uh, hi?"

"Hi," Jamie says. "Can we come in?"

He should probably shut the door on them like he did on EJ earlier, but he actually kind of likes Jamie, despite the number of hits he's taken from him. And he hasn't spent much time with Combs since he left the Avs, but he was always a decent guy. So he steps back and lets the three of them in, though he gives EJ a dirty look while he does it.

"Hey, Mac," Combs says, and Nate doesn't even know how to reply.

"What is this?" he asks, instead.

"An intervention," EJ says. "Landy says you need to kneel, and Sid agrees with him. You won't do it for me. So we brought in reinforcements."

"I thought since you and Combs played together before," Jamie says, "maybe you'd want to kneel for him. But if not, and you don't want to, uh, do it for me, any of the boys would help."

The first thing Nate feels is incredibly, violently angry. But before he can even say anything, EJ and Combs get into an argument about which of them would be better for Nate to kneel for. "If he wouldn't kneel for  _ Sidney Crosby _ what makes you think he'll do it for you?" EJ is saying, while Combs comes up with some garbage about "I'm no Crosby but at least I'm  _ here _ , and I know how Sid does things, I saw him do it in the locker room when I was with the Pens," and Nate snaps.

"If I go with Jamie, will you shut up?" he says to EJ, who shuts his mouth and blinks back at him, wide-eyed.

"Yeah," he says eventually. "Yeah, go with Jamie."

"You guys are fucking children," Nate grouses, sticking his feet in his shoes. "I can't believe you think this is going to make us stop losing."

Jamie gives him a considering look. "I don't think anyone thinks that," he says, which doesn't make Nate feel any better about anything. "You win or lose as a team," Jamie adds, and okay, that maybe makes it a little better.

"Maybe this will help you remember that," EJ says.

*

Jamie doesn't take him home. They get in the car and start driving, in the general direction of Jamie's house, but then he says, "I think I know what's going to work for you."

Nate, who's been sullenly glaring out the window like the child he claims he isn't, looks over at him. "What?"

"You don't want to kneel for me, right?" Jamie asks, cutting a glance over to him. "You can, if you want to, but I don't think you do."

"I want to make my idiot friends shut up and leave me alone," Nate says. He's never really wanted to kneel for anyone other than Sid and Landy, anyway.

Jamie snorts and keeps driving.

*

The house they pull up to is big, half because it belongs to an NHL player and half because everything in Dallas is big. Jamie rings the bell, and they wait until the door swings open. "Oh," a pretty woman says. "I guess you're here for Ben, right?"

"Yeah, thanks," Jamie says, following her in when she wanders back into the house, calling for her husband.

A moment later, Ben Bishop walks into the front hall, dressed in sweats and an old t-shirt, and humiliatingly, Nate's knees tremble. He bites his lip and forces himself to hold still. Bish looks between the two of them, then says, "What's up?"

"Sorry to bother you this late," Jamie says. "Do you have a few minutes? Somewhere private?"

"Sure," Bish says easily. He stops to say something to his wife, who smiles and waves at them, then leads them into what must be some kind of home office. There are a couple of cushy leather armchairs, a sofa, and a large desk, backed by a display case full of awards and memorabilia. Bish sits down and waves his hand toward the other chair and the sofa.

Nate takes two steps toward Bish's chair and falls to his knees.

"Oh," Bish says, and Nate's looking at the floor but he can imagine the surprise on his face. His own face burns, and he's sure he's turning bright red, his heart beating hard. God, this was a terrible idea, Bish is going to be so offended, he's going to think Nate is ridiculous and young and unprofessional, he's going to--

"Yeah," Jamie says, sitting down on the sofa. "Is this okay? Just for a little while."

Nate jerks when Bish's hand comes down on the back of his neck. "Let's get a pillow for your knees, huh?" he says.

Jamie must hand one over, because a second later Bish is sliding a pillow across the floor, and Nate is even more embarrassed that he hadn't even thought about his own knees before dropping like a rock. He gets up enough to get the pillow under him, then settles back down on top of it. "Sorry," he says, his voice coming out more hoarse than it has any right to be. "I didn't-- This isn't--"

"It's fine," Bish says, hand settling on Nate's shoulder. "I get it. You think you couldn't score on me because you were doing something wrong? Give me a little more credit than that."

A little bit of tension drains out of Nate's shoulders. "Give  _ us _ a little more credit," Jamie says. "We played a hard game."

"It's not like we weren't right where you are a couple weeks ago," Bish points out, and yeah, it's true. The Stars had a terrible start to the season, gave up goals in the first minutes of the game, just like the Avs had happen tonight.

"We turned it around," Jamie says, "as a team."

"Yeah," Nate says, his breath coming out in a soft whoosh. He tips his head so his forehead rests on Bish's thigh.

"Yeah," Bish repeats.

*

He stays down for the better part of an hour, while Bish pets his hair and shoots the shit with Jamie. It's a relief just to be quiet, to not have anyone expecting him to make any grand statements or inspirational speeches. The tension slowly leaves his body, until finally he finds himself yawning, his jaw cracking a little with it.

"Ready to go back to the hotel?" Jamie asks. Bish pats Nate on the shoulder a couple of times before offering him a hand to help him up.

"Yeah," Nate says. "Uh. Thanks." He looks up at Bish for the first time since he walked in the door, feeling himself blush again. "I'm totally scoring on you next time, though."

Bish laughs. "You can try."

*

_ (Jamie has added Nathan MacKinnon to the group chat) _

_ [Nate] thanks guys _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ripples for Av-picking this fic for me, and to all the other folks who helped out with a quick read through and brainstorming!


End file.
